Trivia / Doom Patrol

• Ascended Fanon: Scott Fischer wasn't given a superhero name during his time in the book, but prominent letter writer Charles J. Sperling decided that his name had to be "Blaze". Near the end of that era, the book's editor said that "Scott has adopted the name of Blaze, I think, but he hasn't officially used it."
• Exiled from Continuity: Morrison's run actually predates Vertigo and was considered part of the main DCU. Pollack's run, though, was technically confined to the Vertigo sub-verse along with its sister titles in the 90s. And the next Doom Patrol, John Arcudi's, was technically part of the main DCU again but still considered Pollack's run in continuity. (Meaning that in the end, the only nominally Exiled from Continuity Doom Patrol run simply... wasn't.)
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • If you want to read the complete series, be prepared for quite a search. The original series was only collected in expensive Archive Editions, an expensive omnibus or now-rare black-and-white Showcases until 2018. After that, only Morrison's run, Way's and less than half of Keith Giffen's are collected in trade paperbacks. Rachel Pollack's was solicited to follow up the reprint of Morrison's run, but was cancelled again.
  • As of 2021 you can read Pollack's run digitally... if you spend $50 to pick up each individual issue, or subscribe to Comixology's Unlimited service. An omnibus of her run was finally released in late 2022, although it costs $100.
  • My Greatest Adventure, the Doom Patrol's series of origin, is almost impossible to find in any official format, digital or otherwise; the only volumes that have been released officially are #80-#85, those pertaining to the earliest adventures of Doom Patrol before they got their own dedicated series.
• Promoted Fanboy: The series has been out of the mainstream enough that many of the writers got the gig because they were fans of earlier series. Paul Kupperberg, Grant Morrison and John Byrne were all fans of the original Drake run, and Rachel Pollack was a fan of the Morrison era (and had some letters published in the final Morrison issues, in which she jokingly threatened the editors unless she got the writing job - this was of course just a fun stunt, as she already had it). Keith Giffen admitted he'd been trying to launch a Doom Patrol book for years, and Gerard Way is a confessed Vertigo fanboy who really likes the Doom Patrol and wrote a series that's more than a little like Morrison's run (though he was technically an intern at DC before starting My Chemical Romance, so this may or may not count).
• Referenced by...: In The Oracle Code Izzy is wearing a Robotman shirt the night the girls uncover Arkham's hidden "private ward".
• Schedule Slip:
  • Gerard Way's run has become infamous for this, only managing to go three issues before being hit with numerous and repeated delays, sometimes with the same issue being pushed back three times. One issue was finally on track for a certain release date... then the Great Lockdown arrived and delayed it again!
  • There were plans to release an omnibus of Rachel Pollack's run in 2021, but it got delayed until late in 2022. This created something of a PR nightmare for DC, as Pollack nearly died in August 2022 without ever seeing her work collected.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: Temporarily. The reissue of the Morrison run in trade paperback collections was delayed for some years because of a trade mark lawsuit over the character of Flex Mentallo, who is a parody of the iconic comic-strip advertisements for the Charles Atlas bodybuilding method.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Rachel Pollack had another arc in mind where a man finds an ATM, or Automatic Tarot Machine, that gives him abilities in line with the Tarot deck based on his PIN, before Dorothy eventually uses it to turn him back into the Fool.
  • Joe Casey's Automatic Kafka started life as a Doom Patrol pitch.
  • Another rejected pitch that has come to light in the past few years was one by Scott Lobdell and Ilias Kyriazis, about an all-new Doom Patrol featuring stalwarts Cliff Steele and Gar Logan leading Tefé Holland, Platinum, Madame .44, Zatara and Bizarro, of all people. Kyriazis' blog also features concept art of Changeling, Tefé and Platinum combining into a platinum sword-wielding, tree-limbed green shark—a Good Counterpart of the infamous Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man.
• Write Who You Know: Rachel Pollack said she made Kate Godwin both a computer programmer and a sex worker because she was surprised to find how many trans women she met were exactly that seemingly-unlikely combination.